Page:A Prisoner of the Khaleefa.djvu/378

Rh Even had I not been specially requested, as the last of the Soudan captives, to relate in my narrative all that I had heard and learned concerning Gordon, I should have done so to a certain extent at all events, for he was no more the hero of the British people than he was mine, and the belief that he was still alive had no little to do with my ill-starred journey in 1887. The truth about his death, which is now published for the first time, is ample justification for what follows concerning him while still alive. It is true, as I have been told, that all I can have to say will be from "hearsay;" but then all the reports published concerning Gordon's last days are from hearsay. I have the advantage over all others in this — that I was maybe the one man, captive or not, in Omdurman whom Mahdist and "Government" man alike could trust implicitly and confide in, for there was no questioning what my attitude was towards Abdullahi and Mahdieh. The consequence was that old "Government" people and the powerful men who from time to time became my fellow-prisoners, and, as a consequence, enemies of Abdullahi, gave me confidences which, if given in other quarters, might have resulted in the loss of a head.

Again, almost all the tales told about the Soudan may be classed in one of two categories; the first, tales like mine, related by people interested in putting their own version upon events and incidents with which they were personally connected, and the second, tales told by people with versions for which they believed their questioners were hankering, so that what